Strange Links

In the Thursday, May 14, 2009 issue of the Billings Gazette there were two stories about 200 miles apart that show the diversity of Montana pretty well. I have been following the Yellowstone Club story for some time, and the story “Auction of Yellowstone Club waits on negotiations” details the latest developments in this debacle. While the article talks of taking the bankers to the proverbial woodshed, I don’t see many real consequences for anybody involved here. The golf course at the club is greening up, the Blixseths are still rich, and Swiss banking still isn’t a bad business to be in. I’m guessing I wouldn’t mind staying in Montana for a few weeks on the dime of a Swiss bank even if I did have to be scolded by a judge every few days. It sounds like a timeshare presentation to me.

Just over 200 miles down the road they are trying to fill a prison and make a few bucks in Hardin. I’m not sure this was ever a good idea, but it is an ironic twist that in some places a house in Montana will cost you several million and just down the road they will pay you to send prisoners. The article “Al-Jazeera joins parade of media drawn to empty prison”. I coached a team for a few years that used to play in Hardin, and going to school in Billings I spent plenty of time out in that area. The bottom line is, it’s pretty hard to scrape together a living in that area of the state.

It’s the juxtaposition that gets me. A state that attracts the ultra-rich, and some lesser wealthy people who think it’s a great place to retire, it’s a pretty terrible place to try and carve out a modest middle-income career. While the jobless rate in Montana is low by national standards, so are the wages. I suspect that the low jobless rate has a lot to do with the fact that so many people have moved on.

Redistribution isn’t the answer, but there must be a balancing act that would work better. At any rate, there should at least be a place to have the conversation where people realize that these two separate headlines are related by two hundred miles of interstate if nothing else.